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Saturday, January 9, 2010

Lewis Valentine's Swearing In

A November 11th blog posting at the New York Times featured this photograph of Lewis J. Valentine's swearing-in as Police Commissioner of New York in 1934. The woman sitting behind Fiorello LaGuardia is our Great-Grandmother Elizabeth Daly Valentine. The younger people are Uncle Lew's daughters, their husbands and grandchildren. His wife Theresa is hiding behind LaGuardia. One of the next generation has identified her grandfather in-law Charles Locke (married to Lew's eldest daughter Elizabeth) as the man holding a child on the left.

Elizabeth is 73 in the photo.

A newspaper description from 1934:

"Wearing civilian clothes at nine in the morning of the 26th Valentine reported with his wife, 4 daughters, three of his grandchildren, and his proud mother to City Hall to be sworn in as the police commissioner by a beaming mayor."

2 comments:

My father told me Lewis Valentine was one of our cousins, either a first cousin, or second cousin. Dad's deceased now, so I don't have much information. We also have Daly relatives, from what he told me. Dad came from Brooklyn, in the Bensonhurst area, and Bay Ridge too, I think. He attended Erasmus Hall high school and was a veteran of WWII, Korea and Viet Nam. Our family names include Gormley, and Coope, and probably others. Can anyone offer more information on family history to see where this branch of the family fits in? Thanks.